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Abstract
In my first article, I present two arguments related to resemblance accounts of the category WOMAN. First, I critique some contemporary family-resemblance approaches to the category WOMAN, and claim that they do not take sufficient account of dis-semblance, that is, resemblances that people have in common with members of the contrast category MAN. In the second argument, I analyze how the concept of WOMAN is semantically contestable, that is, resemblance/dissemblance structures give rise to vagueness and to borderline cases. Borderline cases – for example, transgender or intersex persons – can either be included in the category or excluded from it. The factors which incline parties in a dispute about membership to include or exclude such persons depend on metaphysical, ethical, or political background assumptions.
In my second article, I begin by considering the harms suffered by transgender persons through “misgendering”, that is, the intensional or extensional deployment of gender terms which inflict psychological harms upon transgender persons, place them in situations of injustice, or diminish their self-respect. Such deployments are morally contestable, that is, they can be challenged on ethical grounds. Several characterisations of the term ‘woman’ proposed in the feminist literature are critiqued from this perspective. These characterisations possess two defects in the context of political struggle: they either exclude at least some transgender women, or else they implicitly foster hierarchies among women, marginalising transgender women in particular.
In my third article, I elaborate a broadly liberal approach to gender pluralism. The approach involves: i) the public toleration of gender practices and beliefs which contest prevalent gender expectations and modes of gender ascription; and ii) state-gender neutrality. Public toleration allows gender practices and beliefs within public space that do not conform to socially prevalent norms regarding gender and its expression. State gender-neutrality consists mainly in the removal from law and government policy of provisions which assume compliance with prevalent conceptions of gender. Together, public toleration and state gender-neutrality help ensure the contestability of prevalent gender norms.
